Live your life by developing and growing each day

Okay so I was going to have the title as 'why life is the same as baking a cake'...or something along those lines. Then I thought 'too cliche'.

But the message I wanted to communicate is along the same lines. I could keep it real simple by saying 'you get out what you put in' but it's not as simple as that. Achieving what you 'want' in life is not simply about effort. It's about a focused and directed effort that has been refined from past experiences, failures and research. Living a life you 'want' can be tough because it isn't as if your wants remain static...once you achieve one thing then you move onto your next goal. This is usually automatic for achievers in that not having a goal, even though you've reached all in the past, is worst then the difficulties faced in achieving a current goal.

But the fact of the matter is that none of us is owned anything in life and you have to be prepared to take the good with the bad. It doesn't matter how much you think you deserve something or wish for something to happen....even if you think something is 100% guaranteed to happen for you the fact is if it doesn't it doesn't - no matter how much you thought it would.

Now in these current economic times we are all being tested; financially challenging, jobs and careers not as secure...this could be leading to relationship and health issues etc etc. However it is what you do now that will make the difference and not a time to give up. To lead the life you want you have to take a path you think is correct, judge the results and if not as you want, make adjustments and try again. This is repeated as long as it takes. It's not about following the same process or 'receipe' but harder but doing things a little different, adding something/taking something away. You can also look at the 'receipe' of another person who has what you want - this is again another theme of neurolinguistic programming or NLP; modelling your actions on another.

Bottom line is that you cannot get out of bed each morning expecting something to happen because you 'deserve it or think it will happen because it did in the past'. Each action has to be attached to a result and you have to be prepared to change your actions if necessary - most important thing is not to ever stop because it might only need one more adjustment for everything to fall into place

Do we need to change how we educate ourselves?

What do you think of when it comes to your professional education and indeed your professional growth and development? Do you know what you need to grow and develop both at the professional and personal level, or are you hoping for the best and that whatever choice you make will be the right one?

There is no doubt that our society, in respect to the way we live and do business, is continually changing and evolving. Work and life has never been so intertwined because (1) the corporate environment is becoming more and more competitive thus you have to sacrifice more to succeed within it and (2) with the increasing trend of working for yourself or within a small business there is the need to almost live by working in something that you want to become a large part of your life. There is no switching off when you come home at night; mobile communication sees to that and many people who run a business have to use that time to undertake other tasks that they didn't have time to get around to during the day. However what I've seen is that whilst we're working harder than ever, and perhaps enjoying the experience, there is still a challenge in ensuring that our professional and personal development is not only a priority but is also meaningful and of real benefit.

What I see in respect to the professional and personal development frameworks currently in place, at least in the Western countries I've lived in is; (1) schools are not preparing students for the reality of the changing world when it comes to teaching them the basic competencies they will need, (2) universities are struggling to do the same and for the most part change their courses only when they feel they are going to make enough money from it, (3) there are many what I would call inadequate and 'unauthentic' training and development companies that charge a lot of money for something that is either sub-standard or doesn't deliver any meaningful long-term benefit and (4) society as a whole is uneducated about the most efficient and effective way to ensure they develop both professionally and personally. Sure people develop but usually after a lot of wasted time, money and personal sacrifice that in hindsight (you have to love hinsight) could have been done a lot better.

We all need to consider how we educate ourselves and my belief is that as a society we can do this a lot better. Of course I have no real solutions but I would love for learning to be fully collaborative rather than directed by institutional bodies that by chance have put themselves in a position to dictate a lot of what we are taught. I also believe the future of our society is to ensure that our personal development is at least given the level of importance of information based learning so we are able to manage ourselves and make better choices when it comes to the key decisions in life. My advice is to think outside the box when it comes to educating yourself and really look at what you need - remembering that the information you learn today could very well be outdated within a short period of time but that the development of you as a person is an ongoing journey.

Life is about making the decisions that you truly believe will make a difference

When it comes to making life choices there are a number of unconscious and conscious forces at play. We can talk about genetics, behavourisms due to your upbringing and social circle and even your specific cognitive traits. These forces will produce needs, motivations, drives and goals. When it comes to making a choice in life about what you want to do it is common, at an early stage, to list a large number of options and wishes. However only later do you begin to realize that though you would love to do everything listed, inherent skills and time and even place in life will impact the success you will have in achieving those goals.

Humans all say a lot of things without really knowing what they are saying because they don't take the time to think about what they are saying. However language and thoughts most definitely influence behaviour so this isn't to be taken lightly. If you say you want to achieve 10 things in a year and you achieve one there will be a level of disappointment along with stress, anger, frustration and anxiety depending on your individual personality. Therefore it is better to think and realize that though you have the capabilities to achieve a lot it is better to focus on only a few at a time to ensure success.

In this goal driven world we live in goals are a normal part of everyday life. But what's the point in having goals if we have no time to undertake the actions necessary to achieve them. Why complete two of 20 goals in a year when you know that simply by living your life that year that you will have another 20 for the year after. Goals and dreams are the life-blood of humanity but unless they are achieved the human psyche will perceive weakness and failure rather than the realization they never had the resources to achieve all stated goals.

The secret is to do the work, make the effort to understand your true needs, motivations and goals and focus on achieving those few most important at any point in time - then move on to the next lot. Achieving five from five each year, rather than 10 from 20, will boost self esteem, increase confidence and reduce negative emotions. But the first step is to remember it's about quality not quantity when it comes to achievement.

The secret to achieving the important things in your life

Time is always something we desire more of however it is the one thing we cannot control - it is also a resource that is limited in nature. We all want more time in order to achieve more of our goals in life rather than seemingly spending more and more minutes on admin such as banking, grocery shopping etc. Therefore how can we ensure that we make better use of our time if solely for the purpose of not looking back at our life and regretting certain things we didn’t achieve simply due to a perceived lack of time.

The first step is to become aware of how you are actually spending your precious minutes on a daily basis and over the course of the week. Are you spending time on the tasks that will allow you to achieve your goals? Do you even know what those tasks are? Have you aligned your time to reflect the importance of the goals in your life? Have you even spent time considering what your goals are and what you need to do in order to achieve them? Habits can either aid you to achieve in life or detract from your ability to achieve. People may see habits as good or bad but I would prefer not to label them this way. A bad habit may have a useful purpose but only up to a certain point, therefore it is not necessarily bad.

The second step is to focus only on those actions that are proactively going to allow you to achieve your goals and to reduce or rid yourself of your habits that are not. One example is that of watching television. Now watching a certain amount of television may provide some benefits – enjoyment and relaxation being a couple. However at which point does watching television impact your ability to achieve your other goals? If you watch only five hours of your favourite programs rather than allow yourself ‘television creep’ (where you end up watching a lot more then intended) then you provide yourself with more hours automatically. What this means is that you should weight and rank your goals and the underlying tasks in order to know what you should spend more time on.

The third step is to identify ways and means to become more efficient with your time. Time means money simply because there is a financial opportunity cost attached to every second of your day. One hour less sleep or one hour less television produces two additional hours of earning activity. It also affects the quality of your life in respect to the time to spend on non-enjoyable tasks. Look for ways to double up on actions during the one time period. For example whilst cooking dinner listen to study CDs, work on your hobby on your laptop on the bus ride to work, sending out laundry, ensure all bills are paid via direct debit and listen to your favourite music whilst writing emails (and reduce the latter to once a day). Changing your habits is only as difficult as you wish to make it but it is advised to work with a professional coach in order to change your mentality and motivations behind how you choose to live your life. There is no better time to change then today. Realizing you wanted to make changes five years in the future (what they call hindsight) is not going to help you but if you can visualize right now how this might feel it will allow you to make the necessary changes in your habits.

The need to identify your career success drivers

Ensuring a successful and rewarding career is not simply about gaining some specific piece of knowledge and then taking on a role that appears to be appropriate. Knowledge is only one component of any career role that you have to take care of and manage - no matter what it is. Depending on the role itself others components (to varying degrees) include;

1. Ongoing demand for that role in the economy/organization

You cannot assume you can continue to perform your current role, in its current form, forever and gain the same financial reward. You need to determine why your role is in demand and ensure you move along with what is and will be required.

2. Leadership and management ability and understanding

This is just not about being a leader or managing others - it's about understanding and having empathy with those who lead and manage you. There are many styles of leadership and management and both as a leader and someone being lead you need to comprehend what is best and how to adapt to the varying styles with which you will be faced.

3. Time and stress management

Put simply, if you do not manage or your time or stress levels then your career performance will suffer. Two key drivers of performance are focus and dedication - being stressed and not allocating time to important tasks will not allow you to be either.

4. Networking

More and more careers are requiring some kind of networking to be undertaken - even if it's inter-departmental. Don't shut yourself off in your cubicle, home office...These days it's very much who you know as much as what you know.

5. Personal presence and confidence

Personality plays a large role in career success, no matter how knowledgeable you are in your role. If you want to progress and develop in and beyond your current role you have to be confident (not cocky or bragging) that you can handle your role and more. This is just not about ensuring promotion in your career. If you wanted a flexible work arrangement for say family reasons, there is even more reason to appear that you are confident you can perform in this situation.

6. Health and well-being

More and more evidence points to the fact that if you are strong physically it will allow your mental capabilities to be fully utilized. Mental health and well-being is also a critical component of performance and you must ensure meditation and relaxation is scheduled into your week.

7. Identification of re-education required

Associated with Point 1, experience will only take you so far - as the world changes, the economy changes and thus demand for goods and services changes. Your knowledge of today will not suffice for what is required tomorrow and you have to ensure you keep yourself up to date - this can mean subject matter knowledge, marketing and sales techniques, IT etc. If you don't, then you run the risk of becoming redundant in terms of skills on offer and career options will be limited.

8. IT ability

You need to assess the basic level of IT skills required now and in the future. This basic level will continue to rise so don't think being young means you automatically know everything required.

9. Perseverence and drive

This is one of the most important components. You need to work hard and smart and don't regard failure at any point as the end of the journey but as part of the journey. Success is not achieved overnight and you cannot assume that once you have achieved one thing that it will not disappear if you don't continue to perform. You need to understand your motivations and values for performing.

If it was only knowledge that was important then those with the highest IQ would have the most successful careers - and this is not the case. Aspects of emotional and social intelligence play a major role in success apart from IQ.

The next three important steps are the following; (1) identifying the rank and percentage of the total current role related to the above components, (2) produce a plan on how to improve your performance of each and (3) do the last two things for your next planned career moves. It's no good finding out you don't know how to drive or drive well when given a car....you have to plan in advance.

Collaborative teaming – the future of freelancing

I believe that the future of freelancing is not about working as an individual. In order to meet the demands of clients freelancers will be forced to move toward collaborative teaming, permitting the individual to focus on their strengths whilst benefiting through leveraging the strengths of others and diverting the focus from their weak areas.

Believe it or not freelancing is still in the infancy stage when you might consider that the future of the workplace will see a predicted 40% of the workforce become self-employed by the year 2015. Freelancing has traditionally focused on a number of key occupational demographics including copyrighting, IT, PR and writing, but will sure to expand greatly as large organizations streamline operations and delayer levels of management and personnel. My contacts tell me that some well-known, multinational organizations are planning over the next five years to sustain only a small core of permanent headcount and employ contractors and freelancers when and where required.

So there is little doubt in my mind that freelancing will continue to increase as a percentage of the total workforce. However the important distinction to make is that it just is not any kind of freelancer that will command success in the workplace of the future. Clients will become more demanding and already the trend of organizations is to focus on high performance teams. No longer does the individual reign supreme rather it is collaboration that organizations require. Why is this? It’s because teams provide a number of benefits that individuals cannot provide. These include; blending and leveraging of individual differences, diversity of skills and experience, preference to manage one team rather than a group of individuals and a team can be multi-focused much easier than an individual. Organisations, from an administrative perspective, are also not going to want to focus on hiring many individuals when they can contract out to a multi-talented high performance team.

When it comes to freelancing those of you already working as a freelancer would be aware of the limitations that come with working as an individual. Those range from the administrative tasks to the need to self-market and network, to the fact that it is difficult to develop your skills and experience when working the same kinds of contracts. Sure there is the freedom that comes with working as an individual but there is also the loneliness. Many freelancers find the transition from working within an organization to freelancing difficult simply because their personality is not suited to working in such an environment.

For me high performing collaborative teams are the future of freelancing, not because individual freelancers don’t have the skill sets or experience but because clients will demand the flexibility and efficiency that results from such an approach. The challenge will be to learn how to operate within a freelancing team and to welcome collaboration rather than fear it. Many of my coaching clients are currently moving through this transition and already at the early stages of working within a collaborative team the benefits of increased business opportunities, sharing of networking and marketing activities and ability to develop professionally is being experienced.

Why freelancers must be forward thinking and specific when setting goals

The perception of freelancing in the marketplace is changing and you must be aware of where it is heading before you commence your freelancing career. Starting your freelancing practice without being 100% clear on what your goals and values are, along with a concept of how you might evolve will simply guarantee disappointment and frustration in the future.

Don’t be limited by the old definitions of ‘freelancing’

Our career choices are wider than ever before and accompanying that are a number of work styles offering varying degrees of flexibility, financial compensation and work-life balance. Freelancing was traditionally chosen by those wanting greater work flexibility with an outlook to achieving a better work-life balance compared to that perhaps experienced by an employee in full-time employment. Freelancing was not intended to provide someone with greater wealth rather the benefit was to come from a better quality of life. However with trends in the workplace seeing organizations replacing full-time employees and requiring more project oriented labour freelancing has the potential to become quite lucrative for those willing to seek out the opportunities.

Creating goals for the present and the future

Today’s society is all about breaking down the barriers; there is nothing to say that you cannot work as a freelancer and have it all: greater work flexibility and the opportunity to increase your financial earnings. How you can achieve both is all about managing yourself effectively and ensuring your freelance practice is a well-run machine.

I now coach a number of freelancers who are simply not satisfied with working as freelancers because they want to increase their earnings capability and are unsure as to the best way to go about this. The challenge they face is (1) they haven’t created their business model to be capable of increasing earnings in any meaningful way and (2) their mindset and focus is still that of a small self-employed operator who never expected to be focusing on money and has never made it a priority for one reason or another. What I recommend to most freelancers is that they first must open their mind to the possibility that they can be someone whose career and professional aspirations are not limited to earning through the old time and materials approach. The second recommendation is to consider freelancing as a professional business venture with the same requirements as any small business.

Be specific when it comes to identifying your professional goals

Being specific in your professional goals means that your actions will be more specific – leading to the greater possibility that you will achieve what you set out to do. If you’re a freelancer that might like to run a business in the future don’t start off by thinking you can change the way you work at a later date to accommodate your business goals – it is better to establish a framework early on that you can leverage at a later date with minimal effort. Specific goal setting simply reduces unwelcome surprises and unnecessary effort at a later date.